"How to Save a Life" by The Fray

I listened to this song today after coming to a shocking realization about the relationship I have with my mom. But because that epiphany struck just a few hours ago, I don't think I'm quite ready to discuss it and will wait a few days until I've had time to process. Instead I will write about the first time I really listened to this song. As you all probably know, there is a difference between hearing a song for the first time and really listening to it. You can't help what you hear on the radio, walking into a store, or on your friend's iPod. But when you take the time to really listen to a song, you allow it to wrench out your raw emotions and expose them to your vulnerable consciousness.

The first time I really listened to this song, I was heading up to my composition lesson at my music school. The Saturday before had been Edward's birthday and a good friend of mine had mentioned that he had been eating lunch alone. For some reason, this image bothered me. I guess his ignoring me in the presence of his friends had made me feel very alone. But somehow the concept of Edward eating his turkey sandwich physically alone on the couch on his birthday did not work for me. At that point, we were not speaking because of lingering awkwardness from the year before. But it just felt like he needed someone to "save" him from the emptiness that my instinct could sense he felt, even if he didn't realize it.

I always viewed Edward somewhat as a lost soul. Because he was not accustomed to the environment in which I and many others around us had grown up, he often felt that he did not fit in. I guess my goal in the beginning was to make him feel welcome and comfortable in the strange world in to which he'd been thrust. I had felt I was accomplishing it pretty well until I started feeling the opposite - uncomfortable, vulnerable and alone. I lost Edward because of my inability to step outside myself and understand the culture from which he'd come - one that because of understandable insecurities was unable to accept those who might sever important community bonds. It seems now as if my immaturity may be one of the reasons I lost him "alone in the bitterness."

At a concert I attended today, a young girl read a slam poem she'd written about a situation similar to my own. She repeatedly described her feelings on the matter as being ones of "pain, love, and regret." Though this girl could not be older than a mere 14 years of age, I thought her description was simply profound. Is that not what we all feel when we have lost what we feel we are meant to have? We feel pain over the loss of an important connection. We feel love towards the memories associated with such connection. And most of all, we regret the actions we performed that resulted in the loss of such connection.

I know I consistently refer to Edward as one for whom I have an unbreakable romantic interest. But in the end, I cannot say that the unfulfilled potential of our romantic relationship is what I miss most. What I miss most are the thousands of debates we had about insignificant topics such as colors or obscure semantics, the discussions we had about our independent but similar future plans to travel, the times we would go spastic laughing over ridiculous stories he'd tell and most of all the way we'd walk to random places, not caring where we ended up or where we were going.

When it comes down to it, the loss I've spent way too many blogs trying to describe can be summed up in a few words: "I've lost a friend."

Lyrics to "How to Save a Life":


Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And would I have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And I pray to God he hears you
And I pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And would I have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
You will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And would I have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Link to Music Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmFi2snLr7o